


Long nights (english version)

by ARMEN15



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Battle of Winterfell | Final Battle Against the White Walkers, Confessions, Enemies to Friends, Episode: s08e03 The Long Night, F/M, Final Battle, Fix-It, Jaime Lannister Lives, Older Man/Younger Woman, Post-Battle of Winterfell | Final Battle Against the White Walkers, Pre-Battle of Winterfell | Final Battle Against the White Walkers, Rare Pairings
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-22
Updated: 2021-03-08
Packaged: 2021-03-12 04:08:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,165
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29628879
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ARMEN15/pseuds/ARMEN15
Summary: This is the english version of my "Long nights", previously published in italian.Maybe Long night by Eddie Vedder as soundtrack?
Relationships: Arya Stark & Gendry Waters, Jaime Lannister & Brienne of Tarth, Jaime Lannister & Tyrion Lannister, Jaime Lannister/Arya Stark
Comments: 4
Kudos: 13





	1. Chapter 1

The night before

It was going well, proceeding just as Arya wished.  
Gendry had offered her a new spear, forged by his own hands, for the battle; for the night that would become day and for the day that would become night.  
He was speaking about Melisandre, about blood and fire and about being the son of a king, the bastard of a king.  
Arya didn’t want to think that the king was cursed because treason had ruled in place of Robert, causing Ned Stark to lose his life.  
The king had betrayed the queen and had a dozen bastard children, from the many women he had laid with.  
The queen had betrayed the king with the man who had killed the previous king, with her twin brother, making him the father of her three children, who were all dead now.  
Children of treason, blood of treason, heart of treason. Arya erased King Robert from her mind and focused only on the young man she had known for years.  
Gendry was the possibility, the last chance before the final battle, the discovery of what could have been and what Arya wanted to know.  
So Arya slowly took off her gloves, one at a time, placed them over a sack in the warehouse near the forge; it was dark, the light didn’t matter, everyone was in their own way spending the night waiting.  
Who knew what the other Starks were doing at the time. She knew that her brother - her cousin - was with the queen, her sister perhaps hidden in her room, Bran certainly isolated himself.  
She had heard Brienne’s voice asking to bring new wood for the fireplace in the knights’ room.

**********

Brienne’s eyes were shining as the sword passed from her right shoulder to the other and then back.  
“Arise, Brienne of Tarth, a knight of the seven kingdoms.” Jaime proclaimed.  
The joy in Brienne’s face brought a flame of honour back into the heart of the king slayer: Brienne was happy, her greatest wish came true, she had become the first female knight.  
The years when she was mocked because she was too tall, too ugly, not elegant, never a lady, became nothing compared to the satisfaction of that evening and her name would have been included in the great book as the first female name.  
Brienne looked Jaime straight in his eyes. There were too many emotions. A knight couldn’t afford a tear, and so she slightly lowered her head and left the room.  
Jaime put the sword back in its scabbard. He wanted to say something, to change the atmosphere. Tormund, Podrick and Davos had witnessed the scene in complete silence.  
Tyrion poured some wine, took the cup and offered it to Jaime who first accepted but then, looking at the content, put it on the table and sat looking at the flames of the fire.  
Tormund took leave, heading for the same door that Brienne had left out of; Jaime noticed it and turned to his brother, a questioning look.  
Tyrion nodded slightly. Everyone knew that the big red-bearded man had only one weak point, the blonde woman who often wore blue.  
“To victory!” Tyrion proposed.  
One last toast, Jaime agreed, taking the cup from the table.  
Jaime quickly drank the wine and went out on the opposite side of Brienne’s.  
The cold hit him, the ice of Winterfell, the frost of a night where danger and uncertainty were destroying the certainties of the warriors from within.  
Jaime Lannister had never been a particularly religious man. He remembered that as a child his mother lead him in front of the Seven.  
His father was never present on those occasions, and his sister didn’t want to be there either.  
Growing up, Jaime realized that his shortcomings before the gods had such a strong meaning that he would never be forgiven.  
All his sins had been committed out of love, but love was no longer enough: between honour and duty, love had been stifled. Too many promises he had had to fulfil in his life had accumulated like layers of dust on an old shelf and the rotten wood had given way, wiping everything away.  
A lump in his throat: the memory of his sister, the last farewell before this trip to the end of the world.

********

Gendry was confused when asked about the number of women he had made love to. Perhaps he thought a lady would never ask such a question.  
Arya Stark wasn’t a lady and never would be.  
Arya Stark wanted a man for her last night on earth, she wanted Gendry for one night only.  
Gendry said he had been with three women until then, Arya knew she had not been with any men.  
When Arya declared they would probably all die the next day, he understood, looking at her; the kiss was an impulse, but not only impulse, it was born from fear, born from a desperate need, it was stronger than mere desire.  
A call in time in space from those who preceded them, from those who generated them, from the will to survive death.  
Gendry smelled of iron and sweat and Arya wanted him, her heart beating fast and her arms clenching him tight.  
Arya opened the laces of her jacket, he untied his dagger’s belt; they were lost only in themselves, forgetting everything else around them, until a sound forced both to return to reality: footsteps, voices, someone shouted.  
“Where’s the blacksmith? A gate chain is breaking! Fast, comet! Where’s the blacksmith?” A voice, two voices, three men arrived, opened the door, Gendry and Arya suddenly parted ways.  
“Turn on the forge! We have to go. Immediately!”  
The men took Gendry by the arm and dragged him away by force, not realizing Arya’s presence in the room.  
Gendry couldn’t protest, the men disappeared with him, turning around the corner of the building.  
Arya was left alone, a solitude that was cold in her heart. Colder than the snow on Winterfell’s roofs.  
She thought to reach her bedroom and try to sleep, but she knew it would be useless: she had to move, she had to do something; she spotted a heavy cloak hanging from a hook and wore it.  
She went out and headed to the only place where she felt she could find a moment of peace, a different tranquility from the one she hoped to experience with Gendry: instead of turning on her emotions, she would repress them again.  
She was perfectly capable of doing so; she trained with the faceless men for a long time. For many months she had lost her landmarks in order to rebuild others, to become smarter than a cat at night, lighter than a bird’s feather, faster than a snake to strike. She was called by the place her family worshipped, the place where her father liked to pray.

********

Walking through the courtyard, Jaime saw soldiers sleeping, drinking, playing dice around the fire, alone, in groups, with women, maids, whores, wives.  
He had no one to keep him company that night and he felt a hint of envy for the simplicity of those men who could enjoy a hug, a kiss, a touch in a time full of uncertainty and pain.  
Even if Cersei was with him, they would have to hide in one of their bedrooms, afraid of being discovered by their allies. His sister hadn’t sent aids to the north, his sister was ready to let thousands of soldiers die out of her desire for power.  
The most painful thing was that Cersei had threatened to destroy Jaime, sending a murderer on his tracks, as he had destroyed their three children. Tommen’s suicide had been the hardest moment, when his last hope had died with the young king.  
Cersei said she was expecting another child, but Jaime’s doubts were growing stronger day by day.  
Was there really a babe? Was it his? Maybe it was a question he didn’t want to ask himself.  
It was a question that would simply be repeated for the fourth time, another child without a father, again a father without his children.  
Cersei promised him that she would declare Jaime as the father, but there was Euron Greyjoy, who wanted to marry her to unite the armies, and Cersei was unable to resist the seduction of power.  
Jaime would not be able to bear for another time not to be the father of a child of his.  
Yet he knew that he had to face Cersei again, if he survived, because his sister was his destiny and from his own fate a man cannot escape

*********

Walking toward the holy trees, crushing the snow created a muffled noise; the small crystals didn’t break, but melted into something new, because the air was cold but lacked the frost of other nights. Jaime heard the howling of wolves in the distance and the sounds of nocturnal birds on the branches of trees.  
The moonlight illuminated his passage on the ground amid fallen leaves and scattered stones; he spotted someone else’s tracks in the snow, small, light. Maybe a child had gone to bring a gift to the gods, hanging it on the lower branches, the ones a child could reach.  
All the children were at the castle and would stay hidden inside the crypts during the battle, together with Sansa, the women and Tyrion; his brother was unable to fight in an open field, but Tyrion would protect until death the people entrusted to him. Jaime was ready for another battle, perhaps his last, perhaps the most important of all: he had seen the dragon, had seen the power of fire and now would see the power of ice.  
Jaime reached the edge of the Godswood, where he had met Bran, who had forgiven him: a balm for his heart to know that what had happened was necessary, inevitable.  
A small sprig creaked under his boot. A voice, suddenly.  
“Who goes there?”  
A stealthy shadow moved with speed from behind a tree.  
Jaime immediately recognized her from the tone, the posture, the small glittering blade: the young wolf, the most dangerous of all, the one who hadn’t been afraid to call him Kingslayer, the man without honour, lover of his sister Queen.  
“Jaime Lannister.”  
He replied, using only his name, approaching her and slightly opening his arms to show that he was not holding any weapons.  
“I could have hit you. Snow makes noise.”  
“You can’t hit me today. Tomorrow, whatever happens, you can do it.”  
“Bran forgave you. It’s not easy to get forgiveness from a Stark.”  
Jamie raised his stump in a sign of acceptance.  
“I did not ask for his forgiveness, but I am grateful to him for granting it to me.”  
“Would you ask mine, Lannister? Would your pride allow you to do that?”  
She approached him, a full head lower than him, small and deadly, her eyes huge, the grey irises absorbing all the space; Jamie felt himself sinking into that gray sea.  
“Stark, do you want me to ask? Would you feel better after what my family did to yours? Or would you prefer I ask forgiveness with my sword tomorrow? I’m in Winterfell to defend it. I’m not...” A sigh. It was hard, though. “I’m not safe in the capital with my sister.”  
Jaime realized Arya’s eyes were a different kind of justice, not simply black and white like Brienne’s, who would never commit an act against her own honour code. Arya could do it. She could take her dagger and stick it in Jaime’s heart without remorse and fearlessness.  
“We never spoke together before, me and you.” Arya said, putting the dagger back in the scabbard. “For many years I hated all the Lannisters, those on my revenge list and the others too, because it was your blood that I wanted. Now your father is dead and so are your children, guilty or innocent. Your brother is here with the dragon Queen and you have offered your sword.”  
“My offer was free. Cersei deceived me, she didn’t keep her promise and some of mine I want to keep.”  
Arya moved to the centre of the clearing, to touch the largest tree, the fulcrum of the sacred enclosure.  
“A promise made here is worth until the end of your days.”  
Jaime approached, his hand on the trunk higher than Arya’s, close without touching.  
“I promise to fight for the living, tomorrow and every day that the Gods will grant me.”


	2. The night after

They had survived; the battle had brought death, blood and pain.

The fallen were lying in long lines, the survivors reviewed them; Jaime thought they had been brave soldiers, they had given their lives for the living.

After the adrenaline of the battle, came the awareness of being alive, of being flesh and blood and thought.

Arya felt more tired than during the time she spent in Braavos, more tired than seeing her father's head roll away.

She could not think clearly, she could hear the celebrative voices in the great hall and she peered out the window: cries, toasts, hungry and thirsty soldiers, busy servants bringing dishes from the kitchens and filling cups.

Arya saw Sansa arriving, escorted by Sandor; her sister stopped to smile at her. 

"Won't you come in?" 

"Not now. Maybe later."

Sandor opened the door for Sansa, smells of smoke and sweat escaped from the inside. Outside, Winterfell was quiet, only the four-point lookouts were in place, Arya could see their condensed breath coming out of their nostrils. 

She climbed the stands to admire her house immersed in the night, the heavy walls did not let the sounds of the celebration filter.

Arya breathed deeply the pungent air, it was over, she had killed the Night King.

At the Lannister brothers' table, Tyrion ruled, pouring wine - redder than the blood that had been spilled that day - into everyone's cups.

Tormund sat next to Brienne, without taking his eyes off her face; with reddened cheeks she smiled as she responded to the lions' jokes.

Jaime was silent, strangely enough, as if the impact of the event he had helped achieve was not so important. Tyrion knew his brother harboured the fear that the battle was not the last, that the enemy would change shape, nature, gender. A soldier always saw enemies around, why could Jaime not, just for once, forget?

Were there too many memories whirling around his mind he could not set them aside for one night? 

Tyrion loved oblivion. He tried to drown in wine the fear that had clenched him in a vice inside the crypts, the uncertainty of not knowing what was happening to the soldiers in the open.

Jaime had asked him in vain about Sansa, because the looks between the two former spouses were confirmation of a bond that many had tried to force and failed to destroy.

Brienne, sitting in front of Jaime, was recognized by everyone as a knight, deserving of her own page in the great book, her face shining with a new warmth; Tormund was telling her something and Brienne laughed and laughed, he spoke about blue eyes and giant children. A game of truth that became too personal between Brienne and Tyrion, Jaime pulled himself out.

The bitter fate of a kingsguard, loneliness, years spent in two absolute devotions that at fifteen seemed wonderful and then clashed against the real life of the young lion.

What had he gained and what had he lost?

His children, who were not his even if sired by him, his ancestral home, his twin's love.

Winning the war and killing the night king was enough, now, to cushion the pain inside, but for how much longer would it last?

He looked around, looking for the little wolf, the one who had stuck her dagger in the enemy, knocking him down forever. 

It was she who deserved to be the centre of attention, more than the dragon queen, more than the Snow bastard, more than the lady of Winterfell. He wanted to talk to her again, ask if she was satisfied with the oath he took, share with her a moment of peace, as she had done the night before, because being with Arya had given him a sense of tranquility and appeased fears that an experienced soldier like him should not have.

Why did a Stark's approval mean so much to a Lannister?

Arya had been magnificent, sun in the darkness of battle, she had broken the long night to make sure that all other nights were only passages between days, between the light of sunset and the promise of dawn.

Jaime got up while the dragon Queen called the blacksmith, asking him to sit at the highest table, because he was no longer a bastard, but the heir to the late king.

Gendry took two steps as to leave the party, but did not have the courage and did as the Queen asked.

It was ironic, Jaime thought, Robert had died and his son lived while he was alive and Tommen, the one who never wanted to be king, was lost forever.

He felt suffocated by his remorse, his lungs desperate to seek air, his eyes ready to shed tears he had allowed himself only for Myrcella.

Jaime saw the blade shine and wolf's eyes followed his footsteps up the stairs.

"Why aren't you celebrating with the others?"

"And why not you either?" 

"I come from there. I toasted the winners."

"You are too. We won. We're alive."

"I'm a loser. My life doesn't matter, it hasn't been mine in a long time. Too many promises have bound me."

"Even that to my mother? Bran told me."

"I swore to bring you and Sansa home."

Jaime looked at her and regretted what Arya had, endless possibilities open ahead of him, her future as a new path to take, while for him there was only one thing left, to go back to where he had come from for a final confrontation.

The alliance had saved the kingdoms but was a true peace possible or was there only a fragile truce? Arya sat on a wall, her boots barely touching the ground, how different she was from Brienne, Sansa, Catelyn, proud, majestic, tall women.

Whom took the little wolf from?

Suddenly, a memory of twenty years earlier, another girl with dark hair, gray eyes, Lyanna Stark, holding a training sword.

Lyanna, loved by Robert, Rheagar's lover. 

The old lion Tywin had eyed her as a bride for Jaime, perhaps if life circumstances had gone differently, now Jaime would have a daughter from the North, a strong and proud creature like the one in front of him.

"You're glad we won, yet you don't show it."

Jaime tried to make Arya understand that illusions for him were over, hopes withered and only the last glow of the promise made the night before made him happy.

Arya felt emptied, too.

"I don't want to hear any more cries in my head, neither happy one. Can we go back into the woods?"

They started walking together, their elbows almost touching, Arya kept spinning Needle between her fingers, a sign of nervousness. Passing by the stables, moans and sounds of passion, someone isolated for a private celebration; Arya paused for a few seconds. 

"Yesterday I was afraid. I asked Gendry to lie with me to know how it would be like, at least once, but we were interrupted."

Jaime hid the immediate disappointment he felt in his heart; the king's bastard returned again, a young, strong man, Arya's first lover.

Jaime retreated behind a façade of comfortable indignation.

"What would house Stark say?"

"To hell with my family. I killed for them, I fought. I've been away to protect them and I don't care what they think about me!"

Jaime stopped at the gate and looked at her in the light of the torches hanging on both sides. The wound on Arya's forehead was still open, he wanted to touch it but he feared rejection.

"Don't throw away what you've got. Don't ever do that. Did you want any man or Gendry only?"

"I don't know now."

After adrenaline, anxiety and fear, it was no longer so important, Arya Stark was the same even without having experienced the passion of flesh.

Jaime decided to give Robert's son another chance.

"Gendry is sitting at the table with the dragon queen now."

She didn't turn to go back.

"I didn't care to waiting for my wedding to have a man!"

Arya's voice went up in tone, there was a yearning to live inside the girl to frighten the young lion.

"Do what you think is right. What you really want."

"Did you want her?" Without needing to speak the name, the only woman in his life.

"Yes, always. But it was a mistake. She betrayed me, I let her down, all our mistakes destroyed us slowly from within."

Her dream was different, she explained to Jamie as they approached the woods, a desire to travel, of learning things that had never dried since she left Braavos for the journey home.

"Are you going to leave right after you come back?"

Time had parted Arya from Winterfell, that remained the happy memory of when everyone was still alive.

In the darkness, different from the silver light of the moon of the night before, they realized the wind was changing, a different direction and a new scent from the West, signs of a change. 

Arya did not remember the summer she was born after a long winter; they stopped at the edge of the circle, the central tree was completely enveloped by the night. 

"It doesn't want us here now." murmured Arya with a strange reverence that gave Jaime a shiver down his back; the sacredness of the place, such as to upset a warrior like him, back from a thousand trials, was powerful.

They followed back their footsteps to a warm light that filtered from a small building; the hut of an old woman who used herbs, Arya explains, sometimes Lady Cathelyn had summoned her to use her remedies on the Stark children.

Approaching, they heard no voices or sounds, but a torch burned with a bright light, attracting them; if the wood was forbidden, the hut offered a stone bench on which they sat.Jaime opened his cloak and revealed a flask; wine, of the best, offering a toast only for the two of them.

"To the future!"

Suggested Arya, drinking first and passing it on to Jaime, who without thinking of cleaning took it to his lips.

Before the wine he smelled her scent for a moment: leather of clothes, smoke of her hair after the fires of the dead, bread flour that had been Arya's dinner.

Arya picked up the flask to frink from it again, Jaime hoped that she might smell him, a stupid and selfish desire, Arya was half his age and the exponent of a historic rival family, she deserved better than a soldier without a hand.

Yet knowing about Gendry had touched him inside and it wasn't right, Jaime had no title on the girl, there was only Cersei waiting for him – in life or death - at King's Landing.

"You'll go south, I'll go west."

"Perhaps we shall see each other again someday. Bran talked about a possible future."

"My brother, the visionary."

Bran could read minds, but Jaime's face was an open book.

Arya observed him with her head slightly bent, her eyes fixed on Jaime's.

"You don't want to leave."

A sigh, deep, almost a sob, because Arya had understood. Something held him in the North and much more dragged him away. The temptation to change everything, to turn his life upside down, to forget the past; illusion of a moment, Cersei still lured Jaime to her.

"I must. Cersei is with child, I can't leave her alone, with Daenerys aiming to attack King's Landing."

"Another of your bastards?" Arya wasn't surprised.

Jaime nodded, he didn't care that Arya knew, although he felt a certain shame in confirming his bond with Cersei was still alive and strong after the damage they had caused.

"Even bastards deserve a father. Maybe you're better than Robert." 

Arya stood up, turning slightly toward Jaime, to be at the same height. 

She gently approached her small, callous hand to Jaime's cheek and removed the lone tear; he was quick to grab her wrist, before Arya retracted her arm. 

"Arya, if only.."

She shook her head, put her other hand close to his mouth to stop the words. 

Jaime nodded and closed his eyes, he did not want to see her leave, it was the end of a hope that he had no right to indulge. 

The slight touch of Arya's cracked lips on his was the girl's last memory. After that, only leather, smoke and flour remained.

**Author's Note:**

> A comment makes a writer happy.


End file.
